Which northern Italian lake is Italy's largest lake?

Lake Garda is Italy's largest lake. Known in Italian as Lago di Garda, it lies in northern Italy between the Alps and the Po Valley, with its shoreline divided among Lombardy, Veneto, and Trentino.

The lake covers about 370 square kilometres and extends roughly 52 kilometres from north to south. Glaciers helped carve and shape its basin during the Ice Age, leaving a deep northern section and a broader southern end. Its main inflow is the Sarca River, while the Mincio carries water away from the lake near Peschiera del Garda.

In Roman times, Garda was called Lacus Benacus. The modern name is linked to the Germanic place-name Garda, associated with a settlement on the Veronese shore. Lake Maggiore and Lake Como are famous northern Italian rivals, but Maggiore crosses into Switzerland and Como is narrower and deeper; neither exceeds Garda in Italian surface area.